The gold from Winterfell was heavy in the wagons, but the mood on the return journey was light. The Grey Legion sang marching songs. Varrick was already calculating how to spend the fortune on more copper and stone.
But when Blackwood Keep came into view, the singing stopped.
It was mid-day, but the valley was dim. A heavy, low-hanging smog trapped the smoke from the Blast Furnace and the Coke Ovens against the valley floor.
"It looks like Mordor," Ronan muttered, using a reference none of them understood.
As they rode through the village, the devastation was clear. The vegetable gardens nearest the industrial zone were dead. The leaves of the cabbages were spotted with black and yellow burns. The trees on the eastern ridge—downwind of the ovens—were stripped bare, their bark peeling.
A crowd of peasants was gathered at the village square. They weren't cheering the returning Lord. They were holding dead chickens and withered stalks of wheat.
Old Hareth stepped forward. He looked angry.
"My Lord," Hareth said, pointing a shaking finger at the sky. "You brought us gold. You gave us walls. But you have poisoned the air. The Black Rain falls at night. It burns the crops. It burns the skin."
A woman stepped forward, holding a dead sheep. "It ate the grass, Lord Ronan. And then it died foaming at the mouth. This is the price of your 'Breath of the Beast'. The land is cursed."
Ronan dismounted. He walked over to the dead sheep. He checked the mouth.
[Architect's Eye Analysis]
[Cause of Death: Heavy Metal Poisoning / Arsenic Trace]
He looked at the yellowed cabbage leaves.
[Analysis: Acidic Residue (Sulfuric Acid from Coal Smoke)]
He hadn't just polluted the air; he had created acid rain. The sulfur he had cooked out of the coal in the ovens hadn't disappeared—it had gone into the clouds and rained back down on their heads.
"It is not a curse," Ronan said, his voice loud but calm. "It is poison. And I did this."
The crowd murmured. Lords did not admit mistakes. They blamed the Gods or the weather.
"I removed the poison from the coal so the steel would be strong," Ronan explained. "But I put it into the air. Now the air has put it into the soil."
"Then we must stop!" Hareth shouted. "Stop the machine! Stop the ovens! We cannot eat steel!"
Ronan looked at the Blast Furnace. If he stopped it, the Starks would be defenseless. The economy would crash. But if he didn't stop it, his people would starve.
"We don't stop," Ronan said. "We adapt."
The Chemistry of Life
Ronan walked to the center of the square.
"The soil is sick because it is acid," Ronan said. "We need to heal it. We need to feed it."
He turned to Varrick. "The limestone quarry. I need dust. White dust. Tons of it."
"Lime again?" Varrick asked. "For concrete?"
"For the ground," Ronan said. "Lime is alkaline. It fights the acid. We will dust every field in the valley until the soil is sweet again."
He turned back to the crowd. "But that only fixes the poison. It doesn't grow the food. For that, we need something stronger."
Ronan pointed to the midden heaps—the piles of waste and manure on the edge of the village.
"We are wasting our greatest resource," Ronan said.
The Niter Beds
The next morning, Ronan didn't head to the forge. He headed to the fields.
He directed the digging of long, shallow trenches. They lined them with clay to make them watertight.
"Fill them," Ronan ordered.
"With what?" the farmers asked.
"Everything," Ronan said. "Cow dung. Sheep dung. Straw. Old leaves. And... urine."
The peasants stared at him.
"Every chamber pot in the castle," Ronan commanded. "Every bucket in the village. You do not throw it in the river anymore. You throw it here."
They built the Niter Beds.
It was a bio-reactor.
Ronan explained the recipe:
1. Layer of Manure: Nitrogen source.
2. Layer of Straw: Aeration.
3. Liquid Waste: Ammonia.
4. Wood Ash: Potassium.
"We turn it every week," Ronan said, standing over the foul-smelling pit. "We let the air get to it. In six months, white crystals will form on the straw."
"Salt?" Hareth asked, holding his nose.
"Saltpeter," Ronan corrected. "Potassium Nitrate. It is the spark of life for plants. It makes wheat grow twice as high. It makes turnips the size of your head."
(Ronan didn't mention that Saltpeter was also the main ingredient for Gunpowder. That was a secret for later.)
The Four-Field System
"But we cannot wait six months," a farmer cried. "The planting season is now."
Ronan nodded. He took a stick and drew a square in the dirt, dividing it into four smaller squares.
"You plant Wheat every year," Ronan said. "And the wheat eats the land. By the third year, the harvest is weak."
"That is the way of things," Hareth said. "The land gets tired."
"The land gets hungry," Ronan corrected. "We are going to change the rotation."
He pointed to the four squares.
"Field One: Wheat. For bread."
"Field Two: Barley. For ale."
"Field Three: Turnips. For winter food."
"Field Four: Clover."
"Clover?" Hareth scoffed. "We don't eat weeds, my Lord."
"The sheep eat clover," Ronan said. "And the clover eats the air. It pulls the life from the sky and puts it back into the dirt."
[Tech Unlock: Nitrogen Fixation]
[Knowledge:] Legumes (Clover/Peas) have root nodules that fix atmospheric nitrogen.
"We rotate every year," Ronan explained, spinning his finger over the drawing. "The wheat takes the strength. The clover puts it back. The turnips break up the soil. The barley uses the leftovers."
[System Effect: The Agricultural Revolution]
[Projected Yield Increase: +40%]
[Soil Depletion: Eliminated]
"Do this," Ronan promised them. "Spread the lime to kill the acid. Spread the compost from the Niter Beds. And plant the Clover. If the harvest fails, I will buy grain from the Reach with my own gold to feed you. You have my word."
The crowd dispersed, grumbling but hopeful. They had seen him turn mud to stone. Maybe he could turn shit to food.
The Chimney
Ronan wasn't done. He walked back to the Coke Ovens.
"Kennos," Ronan said, looking at the vent holes spewing yellow smoke. "We can't just let this go into the air near the village."
"The smoke has to go somewhere, my Lord."
"Up," Ronan said. "Way up."
He sketched a new design. Instead of venting directly, the ovens would connect to a single, massive chimney stack—a hundred feet tall, built of brick on the high ridge.
"And inside the chimney," Ronan added, "we hang wet limestone baffles. We scrub the smoke before it leaves."
It was a primitive Scrubber. The sulfur would react with the wet lime to create Gypsum (plaster), which would fall to the bottom.
"Build it," Ronan ordered. "Or we won't have any peasants left to work the mines."
Status Update:
• Crisis: Acid Rain mitigated (Lime/Scrubbers).
• Tech: Niter Beds (Fertilizer/Gunpowder precursor).
• Agriculture: Four-Field Rotation implemented.
.....
Author Note
Hi guys! Thank you for reading my fanfiction.
I wanted to let you know that I'm releasing bonus chapters for Power Stones. Here are the goals:
80 Power Stones: 2 Bonus Chapter
100 Power Stones: 2 Bonus Chapters
125 Power Stones: 2 Bonus Chapters
150 Power Stones: 2 Bonus Chapters
Thanks for the support!